In the realm of artificial intelligence, SHRDLU stands as a pioneering example of early attempts to imbue machines with natural language understanding and reasoning capabilities. Developed by Terry Winograd in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), SHRDLU marked a significant milestone in the...
Before the invention of the clock, people relied on various methods to measure time. One of the most common tools used in the past was the alarm candle, a special type of candle designed to burn for a set amount of time before extinguishing itself, thus signalling the passage of...
A tape library is a storage device that contains one or more tape drives, a number of slots to hold tape cartridges, a barcode reader to identify tape cartridges, and an automated method for loading tapes. It is also sometimes referred to as a tape silo, tape robot, or tape...
The mercury delay line was a method for representing binary zeros and ones as pulses of acoustic energy that relied on sound waves flowing through a tube of mercury. At the very least, in principle, the pulses could travel through the delay line unbrokenly if they were to capture the...
Magnetic-core memory, also known as core memory or ferrite core memory, was one of the first types of random access memory (RAM) used in computers. It was developed in the late 1940s and remained in use until the 1970s. Core memory was important because it allowed computers to store data...
The NAT-1 (Neural Activity Tracker) is a highly miniaturised wireless electronic recording system created in an industry-academic collaboration by the Universities of York, Aberdeen, and Cybula Ltd., with specific applications in rodent-based neuroscience. In preclinical research, rodent electroencephalography (EEG) is often used in acting animals. The difficulty in distinguishing EEG...
In the early 19th century, the world was abuzz with a new form of transportation that would change the way people moved around forever: the velocipede. Also known as the “bone shaker,” the velocipede was a precursor to the modern bicycle and was invented in France in the 1860s. The...
The BBC Microcomputer, also known as the BBC Micro, was a series of computers developed and sold by Acorn Computers in the 1980s. The machine was designed to be used in schools and became hugely popular in the UK education system, as well as among hobbyists and home users. The...
George Boole was a 19th-century mathematician and philosopher who is widely regarded as the founder of modern symbolic logic and Boolean algebra. Born in Lincoln, England, in 1815, Boole was a self-taught mathematician who developed an interest in algebra and logic at a young age. Boole’s most significant contribution to...
This mechanical analogue computer was invented in the 1600s. The middle section of the ruler could be slid out to work out mathematical functions by reading the numbers on the scale. The slide rule, also known as a slipstick, is a mechanical device used for performing mathematical calculations. It was...
